


running in reverse

by mayfriend



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alpha Bruce Wayne, Alpha Cassandra Cain, Alpha Damian Wayne, Alpha Jason Todd, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily-centric (DCU), Beta Stephanie Brown, Beta Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Cassandra Cain is Black Bat, Damian Wayne is Shadowbat - Freeform, Dick Grayson is Robin, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Jason Todd is Batboy, Omega Dick Week 2020, Rating May Change, Stephanie Brown is Batgirl, Tags May Change, Tim Drake is Red Hood, Warnings May Change, Younger Dick Grayson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend
Summary: Before Zucco, Dick was an only child. And after-Well, after Dick suddenly has five older siblings - five older siblings, and whatever the hell Steph is - and he thinks he really should’ve appreciated the quiet while he could. A circus has nothing on the Waynes.Dick is, to his horror, the baby of the family. That’s what they call him,baby bat, or at least most of them. Damian strongly Disapproves of nicknames, which is basically a challenge, so for however long Damian calls him Richard, Dick’s gonna call him Dami. Hehatesit. It’s foolproof. But yeah, he’s the youngest - there’s Dami, then Tim, then Cass, then Jason, and finally Dick. He’s the shortest too, but at least there’s a chance he’ll grow out of that; the being-the-youngest thing? Kinda seems like a lifelong gig.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Dick Grayson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 161
Collections: Omega!Dick Week





	running in reverse

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2: Feral Alphas, **Reversed Robins/Batfamily** , Omega & Pup
> 
> Whilst this fic is for Omega Dick Week 2020, it should be stated that in-universe Dick hasn't actually presented yet; instead I decided to focus on the changes wrought by the Batkids' age order being reversed as so many brilliant authors have done before me, and sprinkling in ABO dynamics as a little twist. However, I can see myself coming back to this fic in the future and doing a time jump to when Dick _has_ presented as an omega, so I've decided to post it anyway. Enjoy!

Before Zucco, Dick was an only child. And after-

Well, after Dick suddenly has five older siblings - five older siblings, and whatever the hell Steph is - and he thinks he really should’ve appreciated the quiet while he could. A circus has nothing on the Waynes.

Dick is, to his horror, the baby of the family. That’s what they call him, _baby bat,_ or at least most of them. Damian strongly Disapproves of nicknames, which is basically a challenge, so for however long Damian calls him Richard _,_ Dick’s gonna call him Dami. He _hates_ it. It’s foolproof. But yeah, he’s the youngest - there’s Dami, then Tim, then Cass, then Jason, and then finally Dick. He’s the shortest too, but at least there’s a chance he’ll grow out of that; the being-the-youngest thing? Kinda seems like a lifelong gig.

The scent marking, too, is new; in the circus, there was never much interaction with outsiders, and even those that manned the ticket booths or sold the concessions never spent enough time among the audience to smell different. Everybody in Dick’s life for a really, really long time smelled of home, of _pack_ , of chalk and grass and incense, so strong that even his undeveloped nose could detect it; there was no need to scent mark all the time, not like there is in a big city, where every day he’s spending hours with students, teachers and everyone in between, all of them rubbing their own individual scents on him until he doesn't smell like home, or like home _enough,_ by the way his siblings - and even Bruce, sometimes - will go out of their way to touch him, mark him, in a way he can't yet sense.

He likes it, although he can’t actually smell what they’re doing; he likes the process of it, the tactile nature of it, the way they sit him on their laps, or cuddle with him on the sofa, and ruffle his hair. It reminds him of his parents. He still misses his parents. Sometimes, he looks at Bruce, with his crushing grief, with his portraits and his crusade, and wonders if he’ll ever stop missing them. But being Robin is good for him in a way he isn’t entirely sure being Batman is good for Bruce, and that’s probably because he’s not doing it alone. Bruce isn’t doing it alone either, _obviously_ , but it’s really, really hard to convince him of that sometimes. Bruce has never mated, not even with Damian’s mother, and his longest standing relationship seems to be an on-again-off-again fling with Catwoman, which isn’t _ideal_ , but hey. Baby steps. Tim says she’s actually pretty cool, and Dick trusts Tim, even when Dami says he shouldn’t. 

There’s bad blood there, stuff that Dick thinks has to do with the glass case in the cave, that nobody will talk about at any length with him. He hopes that’s it, anyway; Tim’s also the family’s only beta, besides Alfred. Everyone else is an alpha, even quiet Cass who Dick wouldn’t have pegged as alpha in a million years, at least, not until he sees her fight. Steph is a beta too, but Steph isn’t _quite_ adopted, for all that she feels like part of the family; Damian is always passive-aggressively sniping at her about how she doesn’t actually _live_ at the mansion, but she always gives as good as she gets, and he never actually presses the issue, so that’s probably more Damian being Damian than him not liking betas. He hopes it’s not to do with designation, because Dick’s parents were betas, so he’ll probably be a beta too, and he really likes Dami, even when he pretends he’s mean in front of other people, even when he calls him Richard. 

“Tim,” he asks his brother when they’re the only ones in the kitchen one morning, because Dick’s always been an early riser, and he doesn’t think Tim ever went to sleep by the way he’s cradling his coffee mug, “did you ever want to be an alpha?” 

Tim gets angry, sometimes, out of nowhere, but not this time. His eyes are clear and blue as he tilts his head to the side, thinking. “You know, baby bat… I don’t think I did.”

It puts him in the minority. Even Dick, who generally likes the idea of being beta, of being like his parents, has wondered a few times what it would be like. If Dick was an alpha, nobody would call him a gypsy ever again. Or rather, if Dick was an alpha, he could _make_ them stop saying it. 

“Why?” Dick says, genuinely curious.

“Probably my mom,” Tim says frankly. “She was- unorthodox. In a lot of ways, really, but she never cared about designation. She thought it was meaningless, in the long run. She said that who you were - whether you were willing to work hard, whether you were clever, whether you were strong and sensible and educated - was more important than what you were. And I agreed with her. I guess I still do.”

“Do you miss her?” Dick asks, thinking about his own mother, about the warmth of her skin, the dark chocolate curls that spilled over her shoulders, the sound of her voice. Sometimes, if he tries really hard, he can almost hear it, her, instead of that last animalistic scream before she hit the ground.

Tim shrugs, looks down into his swirling black coffee. “She’s been dead for so long that I don’t really remember much about her, anymore. It’s not like she was around.”

“She was still your mom,” Dick says, and then wonders why he opened his stupid mouth when Tim’s expression- wavers, flickers almost, like static on a TV set, before it’s back the way it was before. That Dick saw it at all is telling. Tim's usually only easy to read when the Pit digs it's claws in.

“Yeah, she was.”

Dick, learning from his mistakes, says nothing and just gets up and rests his head in the hollow of Tim’s shoulder. Tim is the only one in the house short enough for it to be comfortable, but tall enough that it feels a little like his parents hugs; Alfred and Dami are too tall, Bruce too tall _and_ too wide, and although Jason used to only have a couple of inches on Dick, he’s shot up a foot in the past year so that he’s basically the tallest in the house, which is _so_ unfair. Steph is half a head shorter than Bruce, and Cass a whole head shorter than Tim, Dick falling somewhere in between the two. 

Tim gives really, really good hugs, and the best part is that he’s hugging Dick because he wants to, not to scent mark him. It doesn’t make any difference to either of them, after all. “You okay, baby bat?” Tim asks after Dick keeps his face buried in his chest for half a minute, eyes squeezed shut. 

“Yeah,” Dick chokes out, voice wobbling, knowing it’s stupid, knowing it’s six in the morning and there’s no reason for him to start crying like a little kid when his mom and dad have been gone for almost two years now. “I just- I _really_ miss my mom.”

Tim strokes his back as Dick sobs, and helps him wash his face after, so nobody else comes in and smells the salt dried on his cheeks. 

Maybe being the youngest isn’t all bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_mayfriend_) and on [tumblr](http://mayfriend.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
